Child Power

With over a million copies of his books, including If Einstein Ran the Schools, The Human Odyssey, The Power of the Adolescent Brain, Awakening Genius in the Classroom, The Power of Neurodiversity, and most recently, his first novel, Childless, as well as countless speaking engagements, Thomas Armstrong is one of our most influential thinkers on neurodiversity. He has helped teachers, parents, and students celebrate our infinitely resplendent and uniquely neurodiverse brains. Recently, we caught up with Dr. Armstrong for this exclusive interview. After so many non-fiction books, why did you decide to write a novel? Though it’s fiction, Childless is still about kids and human development. It’s about a childless child psychologist who tries to foil a plot to identify childhood as a medical disorder. That plot structure allows me to explore a concern I’ve had for decades, that childhood is under attack and that childhood has maybe already disappeared. I was reading just today that kids are being regarded as adults, starting at the age of 12, when it comes to smartphones and social networks. In the novel, there’s a battle between scientists trying to bring maturity to people within a few minutes of being born, making them what I call popcorn adults, and a scientist trying to do the opposite, to extend childhood into old age. While writing the novel, I experienced that playfulness that I talk about as being so important for childhood and so important for all of us to incorporate into our lives. What started you down this path? I remember walking past the Harvard Astrophysics Laboratory grounds when I felt a sudden calling, so to speak, to work with children. I realized that to change society, this is the place to begin. I became a special education teacher. It wasn’t until my late 30s that I realized that I loved writing more than teaching. And I’ve just found out now that, hey, I’m a novelist, too. That’s a really nice thing to discover at the age of 71. Talk about late blooming. [perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]We get overly focused on skills and lose sight of the big picture, which is about enhancing the child’s image of themselves and giving them time and opportunity to practice what they do well, as well as confronting their challenges.[/perfectpullquote] How did you develop your interest in how the mind works? Probably because I’ve got a very verbal mind. Also, there was mental illness in my family and in myself. My father was a pediatrician but had depression and was out of work for 17 years. That was the beginning of my understanding of the devastation that mental illness can have over a family. As I went into my 20s and 30s, I, too, began to have symptoms of depression. I took medication for it, and that helped a lot. That’s when I realized that, hey, the reason you’re so interested in kids who have disabilities, such as hyperactivity, ADHD, and so forth, is because you’ve got it yourself. When I found out about Howard Gardner’s Cognitive Theory of Intelligence, I realized that there are different kinds of minds. We need to understand that in order to educate students more effectively and more compassionately. What advice would you give to help neurodiverse students thrive in school and beyond? With neurodiversity, we’re talking about kids that don’t fit in the system. They’re the square pegs trying to fit into round holes. The thing to keep in mind is that these kids really need to be reminded of their gifts, their positive attributes. One thing that really got me down as a learning disability specialist was that we seem to focus on what kids can’t do, instead of what they could do. You need to find out as much as you can about your child’s strengths and abilities, then give them a chance to demonstrate those strengths and abilities. That is what’s going to save them and give them the lifeline they need into adulthood and a career that matches their gifts. That will bring them satisfaction and happiness. And that is much more important than whether they learn to add and subtract or read in the second grade. We get overly focused on skills and lose sight of the big picture, which is about enhancing the child’s image of themselves and giving them time and opportunity to practice what they do well, as well as confronting their challenges. How have readers reacted to your work? Well, this movement of neurodiversity has really taken off in the business world and in higher education, though it’s been much slower to take off in K-12 education, where it’s needed most. There are a lot of factors for this. One is that teachers are concerned with obstacles. “This kid is already three or four grades behind, and you tell me you want me to celebrate his diversity? I just got to get them up to grade level.” There’s that stupid pressure, this “up to grade level” thing. What does that mean? If we start to deconstruct it and look at the individual, who should be judged according to their own performance, not some norm or standard, it has less meaning. It disappoints me that we don’t see an embracing of neurodiversity at the K-12 level. What is The Neurodiversity Strengths Checklist? Simply an inventory that came from a talk I gave on ADHD. I said I don’t think parents realize all the strengths, talents, and abilities that their kids may have. There was a bad reaction to that, a sort of a defensiveness, and maybe it wasn’t the most diplomatic way of putting it. But when I got that reaction, it made me dig in my heels and prove it. I created a checklist that is all-encompassing of every kind of strength and talent and ability and intelligence I can think of so that every parent and teacher can find something on that list to relate to their child or student. There are 165 items. It takes a while to fill out, but it’s worth it. Now, it’s disseminated and used a lot, particularly during the IEP process. It’s actually a law that we must describe the strengths of kids who have special needs. One of the most interesting parts of Neurodiversity in the Classroom is your IEP meeting for Leonardo da Vinci. It’s an imagining of what it might have been like if there had been IEP meetings back during the Renaissance. Young Leo was having trouble at school and his parents were called in for an IEP meeting. It’s a satire, which I tend to like. By making things seem a little bit ridiculous, you can often make a point better than you can if you just sort of say it straight out.

From Neurodiversity in the Classroom:

Imagine that Leonardo da Vinci was a child growing up in contemporary times and school authorities had to determine whether or not he should receive an IEP (Individual Education Plan). Here’s what it might look like.